condenCITY_64 city of shadows 1.0

Yesterday I left Seoul and entered the city of shadow. Constructed entirely of its history as it was and as it remains. Bound in starkly banal newness this city stands apart. Defined by neighbors of contrast working side by side. The narrow streets recede in shadow to depths at times unknown and unseen. Light penetrates only so far to stir our imaginations. By invitation we enter and bypass the ground level activity. Blue sky gives way to encrusted corridor and each door with its cast of characters remaining as mysterious as the street below.

Roche: generations + works

Knights of Columbus Building, New Haven, Connecticut, image courtesy wiki commons

I was reminded yesterday of a conversation I had years back when reading a non-related New York Times  article featuring the achievements of modernist Architect, Kevin Roche. The divisive conversation took place in an informal design review at a former office of mine, with an ensuing discussion regarding relevant parking garages as precedent for a design commission in San Francisco, California. My colleagues at the time were flippant at the idea of considering the importance of the New Haven Veterans Memorial Coliseum and the attached parking structure, which to me represented a critical example of the tectonic and monumental (as in architecture) combined in a manner relevant even today. For my colleagues the parking structures non-glamorous, 'ugly image' was of a flatly knee-jerk response. Frankly, their non-critical "general public" position was a hollow argument (shocking to me being in a 'design' office) and enough for me to let a dead-end conversation lie flat... in any event...

The attraction of the firms 60's and 70's works, during the heyday of Roche Dinkeloo Architects, was an evident desire to extend architecture beyond site; engaging a number of their projects in urban reference both literally, perhaps in the surreal spectacle in the forms they created and clearly too, in methods embracing delicate cultural and functional identities of the time, revealed through 'details' in their work.

Mr. Roche was once quoted as saying in an interview,  a "highway scale" was influential in a number of their projects and evidently so in the New Haven Coliseum. It was an innovative project that overcame a high water table site constraint by relocating the parking program to the emblematic elevated position for which the Architecture became known for.  (Which, by the way, was unfortunately demolished in 2007. Limited public funding had let the building deteriorate to the point of New Havens refusal to sufficiently fund and refurbish the aging structure). More can be read about the work of Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo in a Kevin Roche interview on Archinect.       

I have never known Mr. Roche in person although, I feel as though I do, having befriended his daughter Alice in graduate school at Berkeley. Testament (and compliments) to thought filled generations and visions at polar opposites at a spectrum of scales.

condenCITY_63 Urban Factories

A new exhibition in New York at the Skyscraper Museum titled 'Vertical Urban Factory' recently peaked my interest as I examine similar conditions here in Seoul with regards to shifting industrial zones in the city (and what is ultimately left behind as industry relocates to the urban periphery). There is a good article at the Architects Newspaper that reviews the NYC exhibition and brings to light conditions today and more pointedly through the twentieth century of factories in the urban center.  

Not surprisingly is the differences between factories and districts of industry in Seoul in contrast to the western equivalent which has revealed more integral forms in aging city-scapes. In Seoul, the integration is more complex perhaps and regarded with less long term value and questionable overall contributions to the urban fabric. The social components of such conditions are still undeniable as workers and supporting  businesses shape the city in ways unique to industrial process. 

With the displacement of industry anywhere and factories that remain, choices persist as these places rest idle. 

condenCITY_62 double seoul

Calvino's Seoul

"Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else."


-Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

condenCITY_61 city-double : double-city

Mullae dong in Seoul has become an artists enclave over the past decade. To begin THIS decade we examine two communities in Mullae, having become a double entity, side-by-side;  the industry and artist communities of Seoul.

Mullae-dong in Yeongdongpo-gu is one of the few remaining industrial areas within the center of the city.  At the first half of the 20th century, industry took root in Seoul with modernization and production needs (during the Colonial period) and population induced, extended city limits. Today, industry has been pushed to outer city limits with speculative rezoning, leaving vacancies and voids in the industrial city-scape. By 1999, displaced artists of the Hongik area began to take over the vacant spaces of Mullae-dong, occupying the upper levels of what were once industrial offices and work spaces within non-descript, concrete slab structures. A loosely formed community began to emerge and what has now been collectively realized as Mullae Artists Village. 


Now, with the last remaining metal and machine shops at street level, both artists and artisans have established a mutually beneficial common ground. A blossoming 'double' which may even overcome short sided speculations to redevelop this culturally significant area.  

  

condenCITY_60 public discourse

The year (and decade) ended with two public exhibitions of intensions well beyond personal and group recognition. The intense need to bring architecture to the forefront of social/ political awareness and debate was impetus enough for our semester long investigation and final exhibitions. 'Transit_ house', considering the plight of North Korean refugees and the  need for  an accessible housing type, in the very least was an attempt to plant seeds for dialogue and contemplation. Although met with modest reception the ideas will extend beyond studio and gallery. 

Structures of Propaganda

Tis the season for propaganda. 

A large Christmas tree has been fashioned of lights, wrapping a communications tower bordering the DMZ in South Korea. The tower, standing 30 meters high, is supposedly viewable by villagers and military posts on the north side of the DMZ border.  It has been reported the 'tree'  alters perceptions of North Korean residents to recognize fallacies of the North Korean government, who for years have been telling its citizens that they are far better off than the people of South Korea. The bright light display of the tree is meant to challenge this idea amidst long periods of blackout and limited electricity availability in the North...so the story in the media goes or is it a Christian church thing? It certainly wouldn't be the first time for such propaganda.

Transit_ house Seoul

Opening tomorrow, the 20th of December at Prugio Valley gallery in Gangnam ]Seoul[ is an exhibition of ideas for housing Seoul's next wave of refugees from North Korea. This semester our design studio has been researching the plighted situation of North Korean's seeking freedoms here in the south. Our group will be exhibiting ideas for new housing types and strategies, surprisingly a muted topic amongst design professionals in South Korea.

The exhibition will run through the 24th of December. 

condenCITY_59 inhabiting the gap

Seongbuk-gu in Seoul extends outside the northern most ancient city walls. It is an amalgamation of old and new with preservation and conversion of 1930's urban Hanok's (traditional Korean houses) alongside new villas and non-descipt commercial storefronts that can be found throughout Seoul. Galleries, museums and creatively inspired businesses dot the cityscape here. 

As in many of Seoul's older districts there is a willingness to inhabit the uninhabitable- or so it would seem. Drainage-way turned neighborhood with residences and small cafes filling what appears to be a once natural water way. Recent summer and early fall monsoons brought drenching deluges to the region this year and one must wonder the ability of such unplanned areas to withstand the tendencies of water to flow to the lowest geographical point. Somehow drainage whether sufficient or not  has been mitigated allowing the occupation of this urban gap.